An art of busking

In London you are exposed to buskers on every step: streets, tube, shopping malls and enywhere else you can imagine. In majority of the cases they are between good and very good, some of them are outstanding. Also most of them is very original - my personal favourite is a didgeridoo guy from Picadilly Circus tube station (although haven't been there for a while trying desperatelly to avoid crowds there and I don't know if he's still there).
But I was shocked and amased by this guy in Salzburg (sorry for the quality of the recording, no idea where this howling came from! :)
London buskers have still something to learn...

Snow

I woke up today to this views:

It was cool to see that even though it meant cold and misery in getting to work.

i think I missed snow...

Windy, windy London

A video taken yesterday near my office showing the strength of the storm which swept through Europe yesterday.
When looking at it it's hard to believe that nobody here at Canary Wharf got hurt!

Kayaking to work?

"...Central London -- and in particular its economically crucial finance district -- lies in the floodplain of the Thames river and its tributaries and is especially vulnerable to flooding..."
Reuters

What a fantastic piece of news in the morning for somebody living 150 metres from the river!

I think I should start advising our guests bringing gum boots with them:)

And on the more serious note: we will all start being affected in person by global warming sooner than we would like to...

Coffee

It's official - London with it's omnipresent coffee chains is the worst place in the world to get a decent coffee! Usually all my attempts of consuming this drink are ending up with serious threats from my stomach that it will move out and start living on its own if I continue poison it with this liquid people here call coffee. The only choice was to stop drinking it at all.
Only today, after two years, three months and two weeks since moving into this city, I managed to find a place where cappucino is the way it should be and doesn't make your stomach jump up and down for the rest of the day!
Yet though it's a single place in whole 8-million people city! Very unimpressive result.

Counting down the days before I have a beautiful flat white in one of Wellington's MANY, INDIVIDUAL, GREAT cafes.

UNBELIEVABLE!

Again, after many years, I'm able to watch THE game (thanks to Sky Sports courtesy) AT HOME.
Being able to do it at home is a very impotrant factor as all the important games, due to time difference, are starting damn early on Saturday mornings. Sometimes I was able to manage to pick myself up to go to some pub (closest being in central London) to watch it over breakfast and orange juice, but for obvious reasons didn't do it too often (Saturdays are made for long sleeping for God's sake!).
And now when I'm able to watch it, the game instead of starting like every normal game at 7:30 pm in New Zealand (being very reasonable 8:30 am over here) is starting at 5:30pm!!!

Excuse me, where I can report an official complain????
After all All Blacks are playing Wallabies and us over here, on the Northern Hemisphere, would like to watch it too!

And no, I don't have the video to record it!

P.S. On the other hand Dougie Howlett is playing so I may sacrifice myself, even though I'm out partying on Friday night. Anyways - I'm not a happy bunny!!!

Sing when you're winning!

Upon my return to the office after three days long weekend in Paris, I bumped on my work mates excited to tell me that I won Grand National ! (I believe that behind this excitement there was a hidden hope that I'll promise to buy everyone a beer after work!)
After couple of minutes I reminded myself drawing a weird name of a horse on Friday morning as my office and whole country was in a craze of horse betting. Who could think than that my Numbersixalverde will win?!

Anyways I won 40 quid and it's an awesome feeling! I know it's only my beginners luck, but it's still awesome to make some extra cash! And of course put me in a fantastic mood at the very start of the day :)

The most famous train in the world...

Two weeks ago I spotted this strange looking train at London Waterloo. I think I read too much Agatha Christie, because my first thought was "It must be Orient Express", but actually at the closer look and some talk to the steward I learnt it really was the most famous train in the world!

Got quite thrilled about that as I have never came across it before, but later at home after opening the web page I got dissapointed - today you can get on Orient Express even in Peru and the classic London-Istanbul via Paris and Venice route is available only to VERY wealthy passangers.

Even though I like all comforts of modern world, I sometimes regret that the "old" world is lost forever - the legend of the train created in many books now is overtaken by the international hotel group, which simply is trying making most out of it. On one hand quite understandable, but for me somehow it's not the same when I know that it's not unique anymore and I can take a similar train in the States, South Africa or Myanmar.
Still, those trips sond like great fun and pure luxury!